05-SEP-A-3
A DECISION REACHED BY ONE OF MY PUBLIC HEALTH STUDENTS WHO HAD ACCOMPANIED ME TO DR/HAITI
AND THE RATIONALE FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL
From: <sonbol@aol.com>
To: <msdgwg@gwumc.edu>
Date: 8/31/2005 5:29:47 PM
Subject: Hello and a bit of news...
Dear Dr. Geelhoed,
I hope you are doing well. Things are actually quiet around here this week, fortunately, as I've just returned from a few days in NYC from meetings at UNICEF followed by a crazy weekend of fun with friends in both NYC and then in Baltimore. Happy to have a bit of respite! Heading to Atlanta at the end of the week for Labor Day weekend with my parents and my sister and her family ‑‑ she's expecting #3 and it's going to be a boy! I'm a very happy and proud auntie of two girls already.
Work and life continues along well in DC ‑‑ but I've come to a major decision. I've decided to apply for medical schools. My intention is to apply for the fall of 2006 (in hopes that I get in, and if not, then for the fall of 2007).
I've just submitted my preliminary AMCAS application with what I believe is a whole new application ‑ very different from the woman I was when I originally applied in 2001. I attach a copy of my personal comments (personal statement) essay which shares a bit more about why I now want to attend medical school. I see myself as being a practitioner here in the States, but one that is fully involved in the policy matters in the global health arena.
I'm hopeful that you will be supportive in my decision to apply. If so, I will call upon you for a letter of recommendation. Your perspective as a Physician, amongst all your other skills/talents, is quite different from my Biology and Global Public Health Policy professors and even those of my colleagues, and I would be very appreciative of you providing your unique view of me, particularly in light of all the time spent together working in the DR and Haiti in July 2004.
I hope to hear from you soon. And to hear about what you think of all of this!
Best,
Sonbol
Wonderful!
Count on me for your support and a letter regarding our work together.
I had been in Sudan earlier in the year and have just now returned from Eritrea (with the kind of stories you would especially like---attached.)
My own view is that you have come around to the right decision: I, too, am a global health interested "social scientist" but the only access to a very valuable resource--credibility in the healing professions--has come from being able to care for people one at a time, and to do so effectively. This gives both perspective and a "bully platform" from which to approach advice on more than individual problems. It seems like a long road--but it is the highly valuable one, with GWUMC particularly looking with favor upon someone of your experience. Be sure and mention our conjoined experiences when in the interview processes (perhaps even more particularly since I invented Bryan McGrath Dean of Admissions to accompany me and witness my operating with students in Eritrea!)
I will send the letter when I have the form that goes to the multiple schools to which you would like to have it sent.
Cheers! And I hope to see you here soon--and you can bet I will use your elective time well!
GWG
Dear Admission Committee Members and Colleagues:
Re: Sonbol Shahid-Salles
I am writing this letter of support for Sonbol’s application to medical school—and I am glad of it since I would have volunteered to do so if she had not requested it first!
I had met Sonbol in early 2004 when I was putting together an expedition to both the Dominican Republic (in response to the worst natural disaster in the history of the Caribbean—the post-hurricane floods and mudslides that claimed thousands of lives along the Haitian/DR border) and a return to the Central Highland Plateau of Haiti where I had previously led volunteer medical missions. She was an enthusiastic participant and a planner who participated in the leadership of the group centered on the public health aspects of the expedition.
The experience is, as predicted before then and since, a life-changing one for each participant and this transformational experience has worked both in personal and professional aspects. A number of the medical students had expressed the opinion that they felt they might do the most good by learning more public health and focusing on community initiatives, and a number of the public health students had reflected back on the satisfaction they had experienced form being part of the medical care experience—and have wanted to switch or extend their education to include medical school! I had discussed this option with Sonbol who was particularly keen on the experience and had seen the power of the health care in both curative and preventive aspects, and considered that she might like to extend and re-direct her education into medical school. In this, I have encouraged her, both with respect to the perspective on health care and the credibility of curative medical expertise in either field in enhancing and expanding her options.
She will be a great asset to health care form the combined perspectives she will bring. I look forward to working with her in the elective periods of her medical education and know she will be effective in caring for individual s and populations of the underserved—whether within or outside arbitrary political boundaries. I recommend her form my periods of close and intensive education and conjoined advocacy for international health care, and would be happy to be called upon to illustrate this further with pictures and stories of her experience already in involvement with health care for the poor.
Thank you for your consideration.
Yours Truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD MPH
Glenn W. Geelhoed
AB, BS, MD, DTMH, MA, MPH, MA, MPhil, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International Medical Education
Professor of Microbiology and Tropical Medicine
Office of the Dean, Ross Hall 741
George Washington University Medical Center
2300 I Street NW
Washington, DC 20037 USA
Phone: 202/994-4428
Fax: 202/994-0926
Cell: 240/401-0247
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